This is everybody's last night together, and some of us will never see each other again.
It wasn't too long into the slasher cycle of the early '80s that people started making parodies of them. That's how it came to be that earnest examples of the form like The Prowler wound up playing opposite spoofs like Student Bodies. Both made in 1981, they provide for an interesting comparison, especially since I found the latter to be so sophomoric and unfunny that it retroactively made me appreciate the genuine article all the more.
Directed by Joseph Zito and sporting special make-up effects by Tom Savini (before he grew tired of this kind of work), The Prowler is set in the shore town on Avalon Bay (in reality, Cape May, NJ), where tragedy struck on the night of the college graduation dance in 1945. Seems a young lass sent her old beau a "Dear John" letter and he showed up in his fatigues to put a pitchfork through her and her new beau. For the next 35 years dances were explicitly forbidden, but in the present (1980) it's back on and sheriff Farley Granger is leaving his trusted deputy (Christopher Goutman) in charge so he can slip away and enjoy his annual fishing trip. Soon after he does, though, Zito shows a black-gloved figure lacing up a pair of army boots, zipping up a camouflage jacket, and loading up on weapons, signaling that Goutman is going to have his hands full.
One thing keeping his hands full is his girlfriend (top-billed Vicky Dawson), who is the first to see the Prowler and live. (This is, of course, after the Prowler has killed her slutty roommate and her horny boyfriend.) Called in to investigate, Goutman takes his sweet time doing so (with Zito following in the proud tradition of using light and shadow to make it look like something is happening when absolutely nothing is), and that carries over to their next stop: the home of wheelchair-bound fuddy-duddy Lawrence Tierney (who has a literal blink-and-you'll-miss-him cameo). While Dawson and Goutman play Nancy Drew and one of the Hardy Boys, the Prowler dispatches more of their friends and eventually gets down to the business of stalking Dawson with a pitchfork. No points for guessing ahead of time who he turns out to be when he finally removes his camouflage mask.
In contrast, keeping score is about the only pleasure afforded the viewer of Student Bodies, and it's easy to do so since the filmmakers are conscientious enough to keep an on-screen tally as the body count adds up. Written and directed by erstwhile Woody Allen collaborator Mickey Rose with an uncredited assist from Michael Ritchie, who used the pseudonym "Allen Smithee" for his producer credit (always a sign of quality), the film is a too-obvious parody of slasher-movie tropes that doesn't bring a whole lot to the table. In fact, its sole contribution of note is the way everybody is quite reasonably convinced that class virgin Kristen Riter is the killer since all of the victims are couples who either had or were about to have sex. Of course, we know she isn't the Breather, whose uniform consists of a pair of green rubber gloves and black galoshes, but she has an uphill battle convincing anyone besides her best friend (Matt Goldsby) of that.
Throughout, Rose presents us with a myriad of suspects, from the creepy janitor all the way up to the blustery principal. There's even an unhinged shop teacher who has an unhealthy obsession with horse-head bookends, one of many running gags that Rose refuses to let die no matter how much it's already been flogged. The biggest joke, however may be the opening caption, which reads: "This motion picture is based on an actual incident. Last year 26 horror films were released... None of them lost money." Of course, that joke was ultimately on Student Bodies since it bombed at the box office. I guess sometimes there is accounting for taste.